What are the ethical considerations regarding the privacy and control of consumer information and big data, especially in the aftermath of recent large-scale data breaches?
This course provides a framework to analyze these concerns as you examine the ethical and privacy implications of collecting and managing big data. Explore the broader impact of the data science field on modern society and the principles of fairness, accountability and transparency as you gain a deeper understanding of the importance of a shared set of ethical values. You will examine the need for voluntary disclosure when leveraging metadata to inform basic algorithms and/or complex artificial intelligence systems while also learning best practices for responsible data management, understanding the significance of the Fair Information Practices Principles Act and the laws concerning the "right to be forgotten."
This course will help you answer questions such as who owns data, how do we value privacy, how to receive informed consent and what it means to be fair.
Data scientists and anyone beginning to use or expand their use of data will benefit from this course. No particular previous knowledge needed.

From the lesson

Algorithmic Fairness

What could be fairer than a data-driven analysis? Surely the dumb computer cannot harbor prejudice or stereotypes. While indeed the analysis technique may be completely neutral, given the assumptions, the model, the training data, and so forth, all of these boundary conditions are set by humans, who may reflect their biases in the analysis result, possibly without even intending to do so. Only recently have people begun to think about how algorithmic decisions can be unfair. Consider this article, published in the New York Times. This module discusses this cutting edge issue.